Friday, July 19, 2024
Today is my brothers’ birthday!! Shout out to David and Dennis who passed a milestone today. They are in their 70s, while my younger sister, Donna, is only in her 50s. Wow. That’s amazing. They are having a party in the newly remodeled kitchen (at Dave and Jayne’s house) that is utterly fantastic. I wish I could be there!
We slept and slept! I woke up at 9:30 and Keith had already been to the bakery – a raspberry tart of perfection for me, two pastel de nata for him, and a baguette. What a guy. We ate and chatted and went back to sleep. I loved listening to the sounds of my street waking up while I dozed. My sister helpfully woke up at 4am her time to text chat with me while Keith snored on my shoulder. A perfect start to a day.
We got a phone scavenger hunt/city tour and set off just after noon. We had to follow directions to different spots then solve a riddle. It was not meant to be hard – it was to show off the city – but, boy, I felt quite victorious every time we got an answer really quickly. (Which was most of the time. Not hard. Might be for children) We went to a bunch of places we had walked by yesterday, but today we got the stories behind things. I read up on Notre Dame cathedral yesterday and some on the royal line of succession and Keith (and I) were very impressed when I knew stuff before they taught us. Yay me. We saw several places it would be nice to play with the band and I started putting together our next trip. We won’t even need a guide in Luxembourg – I will handle it just fine. I will know that Americans know NOTHING about anything, but they only want to hear the cool parts – and that is what I will give them. It’s going to be great!
We went into St. Michael’s church and they had great stained glass windows. The original holy building on this site was built in 987, but it was destroyed and rebuilt several times. The present building goes back to 1688, but it has been restored in the 1960s and 1980s. The stained glass is very not old looking, and I liked it a lot.
We signed up for a sightseeing train as well. It was good. It took us past some of the places we covered on our game, but also some farther away places we would not have hiked to. I’m at 15,000 steps now, so that was a good amount. It was hot. I brought my umbrella to help keep the sun off and it was VERY helpful.
There are very few cars in the old town part of Luxembourg, but there are some narrow streets. I will have a scooter like this (but green) and a car like this when I move here.
We had looked at visiting the casemates yesterday, but it was too late. We wanted to go today, but after the train, we thought we had had enough. Then I looked over the railing. It looked like we got off the train right at the beginning of the casemates, so off we went. Guided tours were only in French today, so we got a map to guide ourselves.
Yeaaaah. About that. They need a new map maker. It was undecipherable, which made it really fun. We talked to some Brits who were lost, and then hooked up with a guy from Montana (via Roseville, MN) who thought he had gotten stupid because he couldn’t figure anything out.
Sigfried bought a spot up on the Bock promontory in about 930 to build a castle to defend his ownings. It was the beginning of Luxembourg. There was a castle and there was a fort and there were tunnels carved into the cliffs, connecting everything. That castle is gone, and the fort is gone, but the tunnels survive. There are apparently miles of them, but we only visited a short distance. Our part had room for 1200 soldiers (um, no. Where? Standing there? Why? Sleeping? I don’t think so. Unless they were standing and sleeping. I don’t know…I’m not a great judge of space/people, but mmm, no. Also, 50 cannons. I was very interested that a loop of cannons could keep firing in rotation to keep the enemy at bay – with each cannon firing 3 times/hour.) So, we tried to follow the map, and every time I thought we knew where we were, we found a letter (areas were lettered) that was NOT where it was supposed to be. There was a killer spiral staircase down to nowhere, followed by another killer spiral staircase back to up.
We shopped around for a T-shirt (you know – I went to Luxembourg. Yes, it’s a country. By France.) and there are NO T- shirts to be had. There are very few places to buy a Luxembourg knickknack – a few postcards or magnets. I didn’t know if I wanted a T-shirt, but now that I can’t have one, I really want one (obviously). We did find a Villeroy and Boch store and I said I feel like we had dishes from them at some point, or somebody has dishes from them. Keith said that every urinal in Europe says Villeroy and Boch on top and he is not interested in eating off their products. I found pretty dishes anyway.
All day long we were getting messages about the covid status of everyone in the band. One person started feeling crummy halfway through the plane ride home yesterday and reported that she tested positive when she got home. Everyone else started reporting – with a lot of positives, and a lot of negatives. Interestingly, no couples were both positive. One person tested during their layover in NYC and is now in a hotel room in Flushing. What?! I would have masked and gone home, unless I was really feeling sick. He didn’t mention how he was feeling. Everyone else reported very mild symptoms. We took our picture and said we had no tests, but are feeling fine and Luxembourg is great. One person wrote back to us that we can get tests at any pharmacy. (um…..yeah…but no)
We went to the grocery store to buy more citrus soda because we were thirsty. We sat on a bench in Guillame square and drank out of our liter bottle of soda. There are so many sidewalk restaurants FILLED with people, most of whom are just drinking. We sat there and chatted and read about Luxembourg and decided it was our answer to having drinks at a cafe.
We were on our way to the Georgian/Kazakhstani restaurant we picked out yesterday, then we swerved into a ramen shop. I had something and Keith had something else and they were both really good. We lingered there, so we had to hurry to the grocery store to get some wine gums. We also bought a box of 6 pistachio ice cream treats. The box was the same price as a scoop of gelato, so we figured why not. We walked down the street, eating our treats and I am just now realizing there are MORE.
Raisins don’t have juice. That is the point.
I did more laundry. I know, how could there BE more laundry since I did it yesterday. I washed today’s clothes and pants. The airplanes of the world are grounded today because Microsoft broke the world (actually, it was CrowdStrike that did, but everyone blamed Microsoft because it was breaking Windows -Keith). Currently, our flight tomorrow morning to Amsterdam says on time, because of course it would. It doesn’t have a clue. Anyway, I thought the more clean clothes we have, the better. And the washing machine is right here in my house!